Thank you to Heidi 2C, Lisha 2NM and Lani 2C who have been the Main Art room LUNCHTIME BOSSES during our lunchtime art sessions on Thursdays over the last few weeks. Thank you for the excellent fulfilment of your duties Heidi, Lisha and Lani, and if you would like a turn being the Main Art Room LUNCHTIME BOSS on Thursday lunchtimes just come and talk to Mrs Menhennet and I will add your name to the list!

BOOKWEEK

We have been enjoying some of the wonderful books shortlisted by the Children’s Book Council of Australia for 2013, in the Art rooms. The Prep children made beautiful sunflowers for PEGGY, by Anna Walker, to follow home! I can’t wait to get them up on display. And just wait until you see the fantastic drawings the grade 1 children have done in response to the Picture Story book of the year – THE COAT by Julie Hunt!

The illustrations by Ron Brooks are wonderful and the children were mesmerised by the fantastic story!

And do you remember last year, we read the gorgeous book, A FOREST, and made a beautiful forest display in the hallway, and I wondered why such a stunning book had been left off the 2012 Picture Book of the Year shortlist??? That was because it was shortlisted for 2013! It is quite an achievement for Marc Martin to be short listed with his first ever picture fiction book!

Link Link to Children’s Book Council Of Australia Book of the Year shortlists

Hi, my name is Amarlea Craig from 2B. On the 23rd of August I went to the “Monet’s Garden” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. There were lots of people and the gallery was very big. Some of the paintings were big and all of them were magical. My favourite painting was a round painting with water lilies in a golden frame. At the end of the exhibition we sat in a round theatre. It showed footage of Claude Monet’s house and the garden in Giverny from day to night. We saw the different rooms in the house and the garden with lots of trees and plants and the lake with the famous Japanese bridge. It was amazing and very beautiful. There was also a really cool gift shop.

Art room helpers – If you would like to help out in the Art room just come and see me and we will book a time that suits you. You don’t have to book in for the time that your child is in the Art room and you don’t need any special skills, just a willingness to help out, and some time to do it. It will give you the opportunity to experience one of our specialist programs up close! The grade 3 children are hand stitching on paper and fabric at the moment so some extra hands to help with knots and tangles during these sessions would be most appreciated.

Don’t forget the BLOG – Have you left a comment on the Back Art Room Blog lately???

DONATIONS – Thank you for all the donations that keep arriving at the main art room. We love to reuse and recycle! I cut up a pile of mostly yellow printed paper that was donated a while ago and the Prep children used this paper to make their sunflowers. We still need –

NEWSPAPERS

Old calendars

Paint sample cards

Wallpaper offcuts and samples

Old CLEAN toothbrushes (they are great for adding slip to clay joins!)

In my endeavours to give Visual Art a higher profile at Cambridge Primary School this year I have tried to put an article in every school newsletter. This has been quite successful as the amount of donations to the Art room has greatly increased and the children often come into the room talking about what their Mum or Nanna thought about something I had mentioned in the newslettter.

So I’m going to post my newsletter items on the blog from now on just to give you an idea of the things I write about to the parents and the community as I think it is so important to share what we do in Visual Art.

Art Room News

Lunchtime boss

Thank you to Giaan 3D and Sa’ad 2C who have been the Main Art room LUNCHTIME BOSSES during our lunchtime art sessions on Thursdays over the last two weeks.

The Art session on Thursday lunchtimes is designed to provide some inside time for the children who feel like drawing or cutting and pasting at lunchtime. It is a very popular session, and often crowded, so I decided I needed a bit of a wrangler to help me sort people out!

Giaan and Sa’ad were in charge of the whole lunch time session, directing students to what was available and helping out as well as making sure that the lunchtime participants cleaned up after themselves before they left the room. Thank you for the excellent fulfilment of your duties Giaan and Sa’ad and if you would like a turn being the Main Art Room LUNCHTIME BOSS on Thursday lunchtimes just come and talk to Mrs Menhennet!

Grade 4a special helpers

Thank you to Anika W, Luke, Lachlan, Saransh and Jasmine from 4A for helping to add some “bling” to some new signs I printed for the Art room. These 5 children came into the main art room at lunchtime and worked on beautifying these signs for everyone’s enjoyment. They look fantastic! Thank you so much.

The children will be viewing these links in the Art room over the next few weeks.

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”

This fabulous exhibition is on at the NGV until 8th September. It is wonderful when Melbourne is visited by such exquisite pieces of work that you would normally only get to see in Paris! I took two of my children over the school holidays and we had a lovely time. I look forward to talking with the children about the exhibition this t term.

Art room helpers – A special thank you to Mrs Ramya Deepak Kumar (Rahul from 2J’s Mum) who helped me in the Main art room on Thursday mornings last term. It was wonderful to have another pair of hands in the Art room to assist with the million and one things that occur in each session. She will be back to help out again in a few weeks time and I can’t wait to get her busy again. Ramya told me that it was great to see the children developing new skills in front of her eyes as well as creating beautiful art works. If you would like to help out in the Art room just come and see me and we will book a time that suits you. You don’t have to book in for the time that your child is in the Art room and you don’t need any special skills, just a willingness to help out, and some time to do it. It will give you the opportunity to experience one of our specialist programs up close!

Don’t forget the BLOG – The back art room blog has had lots of updates over the last week or so. Has your work been featured on the back art room blog???

DONATIONS – Thank you for all the donations that keep arriving at the main art room. We love to reuse and recycle! I cut up a pile of old calendars during the first week of term and had the children help me to mount these beautiful art pictures onto cover paper and laminate them so they can be used within the art program. There were three calendars full of prints of Claude Monet’s paintings! I also had some old floral calendars, animal calendars, birthday cards and some zoo magazines which the Grade 5 and 6 children cut and glued onto cover paper to be used as source pictures when the children need some visuals to help with their drawing. They are all absolutely lovely and just think, they could so easily just have been tossed out!!!

We still need –

NEWSPAPERS

Old calendars

Paint sample cards

Wallpaper offcuts and samples

Old birthday/Christmas cards

We currently have plenty of small boxes so don’t need any more of them at the moment.

Hi, I'm Shell, Welcome to the Back Art Room Blog which is about my Visual Arts program and its place in Primary Visual Arts education in Victoria, Australia. I teach Visual Arts at Cambridge Primary School in Hoppers Crossing so here you will find examples of my students amazing artworks, all sorts of things that happen in and around my art room, as well as my thoughts on Visual Arts education and whatever else I can squeeze in! I want to reflect on my own teaching and learning and interact, learn from and be inspired by others.

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